Library promotes ‘community read’ of Gilbert King book

The Daytona Beach Regional Library at City Island is getting readers revved up for the appearance of Gilbert King, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.”

The library has purchased extra copies of the book so everyone will have a chance to read it and then reserve a seat for the April 12 book discussion with the author. This will be a ticketed event, but all patrons who read the book are guaranteed a seat.

Instructions for reserving a seat can be found on a flier inside the front cover of the book upon checkout.

This community read is based on the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read program, designed to “revitalize the role of literature in American culture and encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.”

Thurgood Marshall, who was an attorney for the NAACP, was named to the Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson in June 1967.(NATIONAL ARCHIVES/MCT)

Florida case
“Devil in the Grove” details events that took place in Lake County in 1949, a violent time of lynchings, Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan. Sheriff Willis V. McCall ruled the county with unmitigated ruthlessness, keeping low-paid, mostly Black orange grove laborers in line so citrus barons could maintain their profits.

Through this background, King threads the story of Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer who would become embroiled in a Florida case that would help change the course of the American civil rights movement.

This community read project is part of the library’s Connecting with the Community Series, a two-year program funded in part by a partnership grant from the Florida Humanities Council.

Grant through 2015
Throughout 2014, the library will sponsor book talks, dramatizations, panel discussions, films and music programs commemorating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The grant will continue into 2015, when the programming emphasis will change to contemporary issues. All Connecting with the Community programs are co-funded by the Friends of the Daytona Beach Library.